ALSACIAN SCHOOL circa 1460-1470 The Arrest of Christ Parquet panel (small missing) 63 x 60 cm PROVENANCE : - Private collection, Alsace - Private collection, Paris NOTE : - We propose to situate our painting in the Alsatian milieu circa 1460 - 1470, in this geographical area that stretches from Strasbourg to Colmar, from Karlsruhe to Basel, all around the Rhine. Its destination is uncertain, but it may have been part of a polyptych probably dedicated to the Passion of Christ, where our painting would be placed after a Prayer in the Garden of Olives. But it is also possible that it was an isolated panel, the presence of the penitent in the lower left with his phylactery pointing in this direction. - Stylistically, the painting is similar to the work of the Karlsruhe Passion Master, whose work is shared between the Karlsruhe and Cologne museums (see the exhibition catalog Die Karlsruher Passion, Karlsruhe, 1996). In addition to certain details (the starry night, the heterogeneous weapons, the curious helmets, the variegated outfits), there are also more formal similarities (the compactness of the group, the nervousness of the extremities, the juxtaposed colors). - In a very good state of preservation, as is often the case with German paintings from this period, this is a work of fine pictorial quality, with a certain sense of humor (see the soldier with the rope around his neck, worthy of a Western villain). Note also the fine detail of the snow-capped mountains, which would be found a few years later in Grünewald's work.